Masala Street
The first presenter, Syed Harris from Chennai, India, pitched Masala Street, which would be best described as OpenTable for India. Syed wants to offer reservation facilities to Chennai restaurants as well as online delivery order management capabilities. In India, incidentally, delivery to the home is much more common because of the availability of affordable labor.
We brainstormed about the business model (SaaS vs. Transactions) and my suggestion is to start with transaction / success fee based models, and once the service gains foothold, SaaS subscription fees can be layered on.
Campus Diaries
Next, Sumit Saurav from Bangalore, India, pitched Campus Diaries, a concept whereby students and alums at various campuses are encouraged to publish context-specific stories related to the campus life. The best stories will later be compiled and turned into books and sold to the same communities. Other media such as eBooks, apps, etc., can also be created from content generated and curated by the community.
Sounds like a fun idea, but as we peeled the onion on the monetization and business model front, I wasn’t convinced how the company would make substantial money. Sumit wants to raise $100,000 in angel money, but I don’t see the investment case and how this concept offers an ROI to investors. It will be very difficult to build a sustainable, high-growth business out of this. In fact, even if you set aside the growth pace requirements of an investor-funded venture, I am not convinced you can bootstrap a sustainable business with this concept.
All Our Power
Then, Joe Kalfa from Maale Adumim, Israel, pitched All Our Power, a group buying concept that aims to bring 10 million consumers together and create a buying club. The business model is well known, Costco being one of its greatest successes. Groupon is also a spin on the group buying model. Joe wants to use a business model whereby he will take 3% of the revenues generated from selling to his audience.
Most of our discussion today was around positioning and customer acquisition strategies, which is currently Joe’s weakest link.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here.
As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1M/1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables at 8:00 a.m. PDT on:
Thursday, May 31, Register Here.
Tuesday, June 4, Register Here.
Thursday, June 7, Register Here.
Thursday, June 14, Register Here.
Thursday, June 21, Register Here.
Thursday, June 28, Register Here.
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